In Reparations Marlin Thomas has given us what is currently the outline of an exceptional play, both in writing and importance. The play needs further work before it actually maximizes its potential.

What is on the stage right now is blessed with really fine performances by Deric Gachenauer (William McCrory White), Dwayne Washington (William McCrory Black), Tyrick Wiltez Jones (Chard) and a dynamic performance by Clarissa Thibeaux (Pat). Director DeMone Seraphin does a solid job staging with the limited resources and set-up and breakdown time in a festival setting. The play really misses a door that is necessary for both symbolic and dramatic effect. Thomas gives us solid dialog which keeps us entertained.

But when a play takes on real issues – slavery and its origins and obligations of the present to “correct” past injustices which leak into the present – an author needs to strive for both historical accuracy and embrace current political and social reality. On these scores Reparations currently falls short.

When they play opens Pat, the wife of William McCrory (white) is going through their condiminium obviously preparing to leave. Then William enters, drunk and looking for a cocaine fix. It is unfortunate, but necessary to reduce the character who has won a Tony, Oscar and Emmy as a writer reduced to a pathetic loser, but necessaty for the story to work. Soon William McCrory (black) knocks on the door with the pretense of looking for an interview and delivering the ordered coke. After much verbal dancing it seems that the Black visitor is looking for Reparations from the White homeowner because his ancestors enslaved his ancestors after a ship mutiny in 1847 when the ship docked in New Orleans.

The problems with the narrative are as follows:

1. By 1847 ALL of the major “slave” nations had banned the international slave trade (England, Portugal, Spain and the US). The ship the “McCrorys” were on could not have been legally flying an English flag. It had to be a pirate.
2. The African McCrory’s were crew members and slavers. That needs to be clear.
3. The White McCrorys were fleeing the potato blight in Ireland (probably to be Indentured in the US) when the merchantman they were traveling on was attacked and taken by the pirates. The White McCrory’s, having little sale value, were enslaved by the pirates.
4. When the slaves on the pirate ship revolted, The White McCrorys took the Black McCrorys as revenge and a “grubstake” to start their lives in New Orleans. It is particular important to emphasize the revenge part of this story.
5. It needs to be clear that Pat is the protagonist in the play. Her attacks on both men and their histories is powerful and biting. It cannot be softened in any way.
6. Pat’s revelation that the Black William’s ancestors had a long history of capturing and selling Africans (including her ancestors) to white, black and Arab slavers and that she is the only one in the room that deserves “reparations” for slavery and from White William for the death of her son gives her ownership of the entire narrative.
7. The character Chard, the lawyer, is introduced for comic relief. But his role as lawyer needs to be more realistic. To decide to represent White William in his negotiations with producers and Black William in his case for reparations from White William is unethical on every level. The character either has to be eliminated, or a second lawyer introduced to co-cover the space that Chard occupies. A lawyer that needs to be disbarred is not a good character for this story.
8. When Pat attacks she needs a 21st Century solution to neuter Black William and allow her to get ALL she can from White William. There needs to be a threat to “cancel” both of them through social media. Black William has a extremely successful career as an influencer/podcaster and White William has an international reputation as a writer, so both are extremely vulnerable. Their fate needs to be exclusively in the hands of Pat and probably negates the need for White William to “embrace” his guilt over his family history since he cannot embrace his responsibility for the death of his son. White William’s half guilt is currently the weakest part of the play.

Reparations should be a MUST SEE, but it needs repair to get to that level.